Name: Steve Paul Jobs Born: February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. Alma mater: Reed College Occupation: Chairman and CEO of Pixar & Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. Residence: Palo Alto, California Religion: Buddhism
The Early Years
Steve Jobs' electronics class at Homestead
Steve Jobs was born out of wedlock in San Francisco, California on February 24, 1955. His biological parents, Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah Jandali, put him up for adoption and insisted that he be adopted by college graduates. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, neither of which went to college. Joanne agreed to the adoption under the condition that Paul and Clara would send Steve to college.
Steve Jobs grew up in Silicon Valley, the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development. He enrolled in a popular electronics class at Homestead High School. Steve Jobs was introduced by a friend to an older computer whiz kid, Steve “Woz” Wozniak, in 1969. They had a shared interest in electronics and quickly became close friends. At one point, Steve and Woz built a device that tricked AT&T’s equipment and allowed you to make free phone calls. Woz went around selling the device at his college until he was almost caught by the police. Steve attended the expensive Reed College in Oregon, but dropped out after one semester.While Steve was away from Silicon Valley, Woz attended the Homebrew Computer Club. Upon returning to the valley, Steve discovered that Woz had been working on his own personal computer board and was able to create a computer which worked with a keyboard and screen. Up to this point, prior computers did little more than flash lights. The engineers at the Homebrew Computer Club thought highly of Woz’s model, and Steve suggested that Woz assemble computers and sell them at Homebrew’s meetings. Steve and Woz would later expand their operations to selling their model to local computer stores, and eventually set up a full-blown corporation. Apple was born.
Jobs and the Apple Computer Company
Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak cofounded the Apple Computer Company in 1976. The idea was to produce inexpensive, small personal computers. While Wozniak was the brains behind the technology, Jobs was the mastermind behind the marketing. He is a risk taker and a visionary who wanted to change the Technology Industry for the better.
The first product was the Apple 1 computer. Jobs convinced a local store, The Byte Shop, to sell these for the price of $666.66, the equivalent of about $1300 today. All 200 Apple 1’s produced were sold. With these encouraging results, the Apple Company multiplied their success with the Apple II. Three years from the establishment date, the company had reached $139 million. This computer was followed by: the first computer designed with the “user friendly” concept in mind, however, at $10,000, it was too expensive for the average consumer; the Lisa (Local Integrated Systems Architecture) or the first mouse, and the Macintosh which, affordable and easy to use, made the home computer more accessible to the public.
While the technology Job’s pushed for was ahead of it’s time, investors did not see the time or money financing R&D making a return. The sales numbers for Macintosh were not promising. In 1985, the co-founders, Jobs and Wozniak, of Apple Computer Company were asked to resign.
Jobs was not to be held down. After leaving Apple, he bought a division of George Lucas’ LucasFilm Ltd., turned it into Pixar Animation Studio, and created NeXT Computer Company. He invested $7 million in his return to the computer industry and $10 million to acquire the computer graphics company.
Meanwhile, the Apple Computer Company was struggling. Jobs was asked to come back as a consultant, then as an interim – or temporary – CEO, and by 2000, he was the permanent CEO of the company he originally instituted. With his foot back in the door, Jobs flipped the company around. The product lines were simplified and made more efficient, a new version of the Apple operating system was made, a cooperative agreement was made with Microsoft, and the iMac and the Air-Port were introduced to the market. Jobs took the company and ran with it.
Today, we have the iPod family leading the mp3-player market, the iPad revolutionizing the tablet, and the iPhone holding the golden standard for smart phones everywhere. Other companies look to Apple for new technology. Even still, the Apple Computer Company only holds a fraction of the market. Jobs does not care. In an interview, he was quoted saying “Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’ or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?” Personality Style Steve Jobs is the 17th most powerful person on the planet, 110th on Forbes list of billionaires, and number 39 on Forbes 400. He is known as an innovative genius among peers. He created Apple in his garage and moved the company to the Apple we know today. Steve Jobs has contributed a vast amount not only to Apple but to technology. So how has Steve Jobs become so successful? His personality gives way to a lot of these accomplishments. Although his personality is a hot debate, he definitely is doing something right.
Personality traits are very observable to others and contribute to the success in a business. Steve Jobs is known for his aggressive and demanding personality. One key personality trait Steve Jobs has is self-confidence. Steve Jobs has an incredible self- confidence in his ability to innovate and solve problems. He also has a great deal of pride and self-confidence within his products. Apple has been known to have quite a bit of arrogance and it shows throughout their advertising. This arrogance comes mainly from Steve’s view of his company. He is low on modesty however; his great belief in himself and his company arguably has made Apple as successful of a company as it is. From evidence we found in research it seems to be that Steve Jobs has an extreme internal locus of control therefore leading to higher job performance. Not only does he expect high quality work from himself, he also makes sure his employees know the high expectations he holds for them as well. Steve Jobs is known to have a very short temper, always expecting greatness from everyone. His short temper has been known to lead to workplace deviance. However, Steve Jobs gets very excited about his products which can lead to emotional contagion. Upon walking into any Apple store, you can feel the pride that Apple employees have for their products displaying the emotional contagion passed down from Steve Jobs and higher management.
According to the “Big Five” personality traits Steve seems to stand out when it comes to openness to experience. He is highly fascinated when it comes to new things. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Steve has little to no agreeableness according to multiple coworkers. In fact Steve Jobs is an extremely proud man who believes his way is always the right way. Although ego is usually a positive feature when it comes to personality, he has an egocentric personality. Steve Jobs is a very assertive leader of Apple and has even been called a dictator from time to time. He has no problem telling his coworkers his opinions, feelings, and demands.
When considering the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Steve Jobs is an ENTP which is an inventor. ENTPs are very curious and can be a source of inspiration to others. They find enjoyment in complex problems. Steve Jobs is very confident in his problem solving skills. He is a perfectionist in everything he does which has delayed many pushed back many Apple product’s release dates.
However Steve Jobs is one of the most prominent and powerful CEOS of our time so perhaps his personality flaws really aren’t flaws at all.
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” Steve Jobs Motivational Style Steve Jobs motivational style is a very unusual one. He uses fear as his main motivational tool. Employees are motivated by the fear created by Jobs in two major ways. The first being he attacks the lower needs of Maslow’s hierarchy, mainly safety and security needs. Reports have said even his most beloved employee can be seen on the receiving end of a tirade. There is a fear of being fired and this has lead to his employees being motivated to do their tasks. This is consistent with McGergor's Theory X style of motivation, which makes the assumption that employees are motivated by lower order needs. They are even motivated by fear to keep on task. Jobs has been known to walk up and take an employees i-phone and if they have been texting, playing games, or even have forgotten to put their phone lock on he fires them.
Perfection and his personality in itself create the other part of the fear. Jobs is a perfectionist and this leads to employees being fearful of presenting ideas or turning in work unless they are up to his standards. This causes them to work on everything to perfection until it is at a level jobs would find acceptable. In a way Steve Jobs, by making uncertainty about the lower order of needs, makes his employees strive for achievement, which is a higher order of needs. It is an unusual but clearly productive tactic of motivation because the incentive for the employee to perform comes from within. His strive for perfections create ustress, the healthy kind of stress that causes you to be productive, within his employees. The fear of Jobs and the stress caused to live up to his great expectations is his greatest motivational tactic.
He also is known to give impromptu motivational speeches. They have been described, as more along the lines of the type of speech a general would give his troops, full of passion and swearing. However this has proven to be a useful motivational tactic because when his employees hear his conviction, love, and passion for the company he becomes an emotional contagion and that passion is passed onto his employees. This has lead to his employees to say that their real motivation comes from the annual meetings with Steve.
Editor's Note
This Wikispace project was completed before the more recent news of Steve Jobs came to light. Apple released a statement late on October 5th that Steve Jobs has passed away. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."
The Silicon Valley Legend
Name: Steve Paul Jobs
Born: February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California.
Alma mater: Reed College
Occupation: Chairman and CEO of Pixar & Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc.
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Religion: Buddhism
The Early Years
Steve Jobs was born out of wedlock in San Francisco, California on February 24, 1955. His biological parents, Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah Jandali, put him up for adoption and insisted that he be adopted by college graduates. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, neither of which went to college. Joanne agreed to the adoption under the condition that Paul and Clara would send Steve to college.
Steve Jobs grew up in Silicon Valley, the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development. He enrolled in a popular electronics class at Homestead High School. Steve Jobs was introduced by a friend to an older computer whiz kid, Steve “Woz” Wozniak, in 1969. They had a shared interest in electronics and quickly became close friends. At one point, Steve and Woz built a device that tricked AT&T’s equipment and allowed you to make free phone calls. Woz went around selling the device at his college until he was almost caught by the police. Steve attended the expensive Reed College in Oregon, but dropped out after one semester.While Steve was away from Silicon Valley, Woz attended the Homebrew Computer Club. Upon returning to the valley, Steve discovered that Woz had been working on his own personal computer board and was able to create a computer which worked with a keyboard and screen. Up to this point, prior computers did little more than flash lights. The engineers at the Homebrew Computer Club thought highly of Woz’s model, and Steve suggested that Woz assemble computers and sell them at Homebrew’s meetings. Steve and Woz would later expand their operations to selling their model to local computer stores, and eventually set up a full-blown corporation. Apple was born.
Jobs and the Apple Computer Company
Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak cofounded the Apple Computer Company in 1976. The idea was to produce inexpensive, small personal computers. While Wozniak was the brains behind the technology, Jobs was the mastermind behind the marketing. He is a risk taker and a visionary who wanted to change the Technology Industry for the better.
The first product was the Apple 1 computer. Jobs convinced a local store, The Byte Shop, to sell these for the price of $666.66, the equivalent of about $1300 today. All 200 Apple 1’s produced were sold. With these encouraging results, the Apple Company multiplied their success with the Apple II. Three years from the establishment date, the company had reached $139 million. This computer was followed by: the first computer designed with the “user friendly” concept in mind, however, at $10,000, it was too expensive for the average consumer; the Lisa (Local Integrated Systems Architecture) or the first mouse, and the Macintosh which, affordable and easy to use, made the home computer more accessible to the public.
While the technology Job’s pushed for was ahead of it’s time, investors did not see the time or money financing R&D making a return. The sales numbers for Macintosh were not promising. In 1985, the co-founders, Jobs and Wozniak, of Apple Computer Company were asked to resign.
Jobs was not to be held down. After leaving Apple, he bought a division of George Lucas’ LucasFilm Ltd., turned it into Pixar Animation Studio, and created NeXT Computer Company. He invested $7 million in his return to the computer industry and $10 million to acquire the computer graphics company.
Meanwhile, the Apple Computer Company was struggling. Jobs was asked to come back as a consultant, then as an interim – or temporary – CEO, and by 2000, he was the permanent CEO of the company he originally instituted. With his foot back in the door, Jobs flipped the company around. The product lines were simplified and made more efficient, a new version of the Apple operating system was made, a cooperative agreement was made with Microsoft, and the iMac and the Air-Port were introduced to the market. Jobs took the company and ran with it.
Today, we have the iPod family leading the mp3-player market, the iPad revolutionizing the tablet, and the iPhone holding the golden standard for smart phones everywhere. Other companies look to Apple for new technology. Even still, the Apple Computer Company only holds a fraction of the market. Jobs does not care. In an interview, he was quoted saying “Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’ or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?”
Personality Style
Steve Jobs is the 17th most powerful person on the planet, 110th on Forbes list of billionaires, and number 39 on Forbes 400. He is known as an innovative genius among peers. He created Apple in his garage and moved the company to the Apple we know today. Steve Jobs has contributed a vast amount not only to Apple but to technology. So how has Steve Jobs become so successful? His personality gives way to a lot of these accomplishments. Although his personality is a hot debate, he definitely is doing something right.
Personality traits are very observable to others and contribute to the success in a business. Steve Jobs is known for his aggressive and demanding personality. One key personality trait
Steve Jobs has is self-confidence. Steve Jobs has an incredible self- confidence in his ability to innovate and solve problems. He also has a great deal of pride and self-confidence within his products. Apple has been known to have quite a bit of arrogance and it shows throughout their advertising. This arrogance comes mainly from Steve’s view of his company. He is low on modesty however; his great belief in himself and his company arguably has made Apple as successful of a company as it is. From evidence we found in research it seems to be that Steve Jobs has an extreme internal locus of control therefore leading to higher job performance. Not only does he expect high quality work from himself, he also makes sure his employees know the high expectations he holds for them as well. Steve Jobs is known to have a very short temper, always expecting greatness from everyone. His short temper has been known to lead to workplace deviance. However, Steve Jobs gets very excited about his products which can lead to emotional contagion. Upon walking into any Apple store, you can feel the pride that Apple employees have for their products displaying the emotional contagion passed down from Steve Jobs and higher management.
According to the “Big Five” personality traits Steve seems to stand out when it comes to openness to experience. He is highly fascinated when it comes to new things. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Steve has little to no agreeableness according to multiple coworkers. In fact Steve Jobs is an extremely proud man who believes his way is always the right way. Although ego is usually a positive feature when it comes to personality, he has an egocentric personality. Steve Jobs is a very assertive leader of Apple and has even been called a dictator from time to time. He has no problem telling his coworkers his opinions, feelings, and demands.
When considering the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Steve Jobs is an ENTP which is an inventor. ENTPs are very curious and can be a source of inspiration to others. They find enjoyment in complex problems. Steve Jobs is very confident in his problem solving skills. He is a perfectionist in everything he does which has delayed many pushed back many Apple product’s release dates.
However Steve Jobs is one of the most prominent and powerful CEOS of our time so perhaps his personality flaws really aren’t flaws at all.
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” Steve Jobs
Motivational Style
Steve Jobs motivational style is a very unusual one. He uses fear as his main motivational tool. Employees are motivated by the fear created by Jobs in two major ways. The first being he attacks the lower needs of Maslow’s hierarchy, mainly safety and security needs. Reports have said even his most beloved employee can be seen on the receiving end of a tirade. There is a fear of being fired and this has lead to his employees being motivated to do their tasks. This is consistent with McGergor's Theory X style of motivation, which makes the assumption that employees are motivated by lower order needs. They are even motivated by fear to keep on task. Jobs has been known to walk up and take an employees i-phone and if they have been texting, playing games, or even have forgotten to put their phone lock on he fires them.
Perfection and his personality in itself create the other part of the fear. Jobs is a perfectionist and this leads to employees being fearful of presenting ideas or turning in work unless they are up to his standards. This causes them to work on everything to perfection until it is at a level jobs would find acceptable. In a way Steve Jobs, by making uncertainty about the lower order of needs, makes his employees strive for achievement, which is a higher order of needs. It is an unusual but clearly productive tactic of motivation because the incentive for the employee to perform comes from within. His strive for perfections create ustress, the healthy kind of stress that causes you to be productive, within his employees. The fear of Jobs and the stress caused to live up to his great expectations is his greatest motivational tactic.
He also is known to give impromptu motivational speeches. They have been described, as more along the lines of the type of speech a general would give his troops, full of passion and swearing. However this has proven to be a useful motivational tactic because when his employees hear his conviction, love, and passion for the company he becomes an emotional contagion and that passion is passed onto his employees. This has lead to his employees to say that their real motivation comes from the annual meetings with Steve.
Editor's Note
This Wikispace project was completed before the more recent news of Steve Jobs came to light. Apple released a statement late on October 5th that Steve Jobs has passed away. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."
Sources
http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/apples-steve-jobs-a-lesson-in-motivating-the-troops/3724
http://www.ehow.com/info_10074075_impact-motivation-worker-productivity.html
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple?currentPage=all
http://allaboutstevejobs.com/being/3-work/3-work.html
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/pixar-story-lucas-disney.html
http://oldcomputers.net/applei.html
http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/woz_gig/woz.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daniel-gross/steve-jobs-greatest-contribution-beyond-apple-001626397.html
http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ge-La/Jobs-Steve.html
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_44/b3906025_mz072.htm
http://www.forbes.com/profile/steve-jobs/
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2350701/allaboutstevejobs/steve_jobs_bio.pdf
References
Bass, Brian. "The Impact of Motivation on Worker Productivity | EHow.com." EHow | How to Videos, Articles & More - Trusted Advice for the Curious Life | EHow.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.ehow.com/info_10074075_impact-motivation-worker-productivity.html>.
"Being Steve: Steve Jobs at Work." All about Steve Jobs.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://allaboutstevejobs.com/being/3-work/3-work.html>.
Burrows, Peter. "Steve Jobs: He Thinks Different." Businessweek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Bloomberg, 1 Nov. 2004. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_44/b3906025_mz072.htm.>
Gross, Daniel. "Jobs’s Greatest Contribution Was Beyond Apple | Daniel Gross - Yahoo! Finance." Yahoo! Finance - Business Finance, Stock Market, Quotes, News. Yahoo!, 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daniel-gross/steve-jobs-greatest-contribution-beyond-apple-001626397.html.>
Moisescot, Romain. "Steve Jobs: A Biography." Allaboutstevejobs. Nov. 2010. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2350701/allaboutstevejobs/Steve_Jobs_Bio.pdf.>
Spaulding, Autumn. "Stephen Wozniak Biography." Welcome to Landsnail.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/woz_gig/woz.html.>
"Steve Jobs Biography - Life, Children, Parents, Name, Story, History, School, Book, Old, Information, Born, Drugs." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Advameg, 2011. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ge-La/Jobs-Steve.html>.
"Steve Jobs - Forbes." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Forbes, Sept. 2011. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/profile/steve-jobs/.>
Steve Tobak. "Apple's Steve Jobs: A Lesson in Motivating the Troops | BNET." BNET - The CBS Interactive Business Network. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/apples-steve-jobs-a-lesson-in-motivating-the-troops/3724>.
"The Pixar Story: Dick Shoup, Alex Schure, George Lucas, Steve Jobs, and Disney." Low End Mac: Lasting Value. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/pixar-story-lucas-disney.html.
Wrong, Doing Everything. "How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong." Wired.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple?currentPage=all.>
References part 3